WEST WHITELAND — Greed can decimate any industry, even one that was originally meant to be fun.

Such has been the fate of sports cards in the United States.

“The card companies overpriced the merchandise,” said Mike Leon of S & B Promotions, which is putting on this weekend’s card and memorabilia show at Exton Mall. “When I came into the business 25 years ago, I could sell a box of cards with 36 packs for $17 or $18. Now I have packs of cards that sell upwards of $800. As they made more product and more expensive product, it pushed the kids out of the hobby.”

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Multiple card shops used to be in towns both big and small. Leon said there were 11,000 at the hobby’s peak two decades ago, but that they number less than 900 today.

The card show and convention circuit once blanketed the country. Leon said a big mall show used to include around 40 vendors, but now it’s around a dozen. This weekend’s show has seven.

Dealers like Leon are a rarity these days. His shop just outside of Reading remains open, and he puts on 39 shows a year throughout the region. During his time in the business, he’s seen how bad decisions ruined an American pastime.

Leon, like most in the trade, trace the beginning of the end to Upper Deck’s inaugural 1989 baseball issue, which doubled the average pack price to $1. As prices went up, so did the number of products available, which topped out at around 500 in the early-1990s. That made it nearly impossible for someone to collect every card of their favorite player.

“I think that killed the hobby,” Leon said. “When I was a kid, there was one card of each player every year, maybe another one if they won a home run title or something. Then all of the sudden there were hundreds.”

Collectors were once able to piece together sets for around $25. Today it can cost thousands.

“I used to build sets each year,” said George Chamberlain, who was at the show Saturday going through boxes of individual cards. “You just can’t afford to do that today.”

The marketplace changed, going from a kid-driven hobby to one now dominated by adults playing a new type of lottery, in the chase of high-end autographed or game-used relic cards.

“I have guys who spend $1,500 a month who do it to gamble on whether they can get that insert card worth $5,000,” Leon said. “And even if they do get it, they put it back into product once they sell it.”

While prices and overproduction did their share of damage to the brick-and-mortar dealers, online marketplace eBay virtually finished the job.

“We have to pay rent, sales tax, utilities, maybe a cable bill,” Leon said. “The eBay guys can do it from their basement.”

Leon said the personal experience provided at card shops can’t be duplicated online.

“The hobby store was a place where you could talk about sports, last night’s game, if the Eagles suck or if they’re great,” Leon said. “You don’t get that on eBay.”

Many in the card business say the great crash came in 1994, the same year of baseball’s strike that cancelled the World Series. As eBay came on and dropped prices to once-unfathomable lows, most of the cards from the ‘80s and ‘90s, once considered great investments, became almost worthless.

The impact was devastating.

“A lot of good people who were in this business were forced to find other jobs and lower-paying jobs,” Leon said. “And in the end, there were two lost generations of collectors. Now anyone from around 40 to 8 years old doesn’t have an interest in card collecting.”

Leon has survived by adapting. While cards are still a part of his store, it’s now more focused on sports novelties and autographs. He has frequent Philly-area athlete signings, with the goal of keeping prices low for kids.

As long as sports exist, Leon said there will be an interest in memorabilia.

“There’s always going to be someone collecting something, even if it isn’t cards,” Leon said. “The only way cards come back is if they can bring the kids back in.”

For collector Eric Perry, who was at Saturday’s show, his approach is simple.

“You have to buy what you like, and like what you buy,” Perry said. “It isn’t about money.”